Welcome to Phototherapy Solutions, a forum for and about Lupus, UVA1 Phototherapy and other chronic and difficult to treat diseases…

Hello and welcome to my website!  I was diagnosed with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), or Lupus, three years ago.  Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease where your body attacks its own tissue and can affect any and every organ system in your body.  It remains one of the hardest diseases to diagnose and treat in the world.  It can take years to accurately diagnose, if ever.  A lot of Lupus patients (‘Lupies’) are severely photo-sensitive,  or allergic to UV light (this includes not just sunlight, but indoor fluorescent lighting and energy savers as well).  50% of Lupus patients file for disability within their first year of diagnosis.  Lupus affects mostly women in their childbearing years, and the cause is still unknown.  There is no cure.   While everyone experiences Lupus differently, for those who have progressive and persistent flares, and for those who have the photo-sensitivity, living a life with Lupus IS and WILL BE a challenge.

Lupus, or Wolf in Latin, is a gnarly disease and until 50 years ago less than 50% of patents lived over 5 years from diagnosis.  The introduction of steroids and other immunosuppressing drugs drastically raised the survival rate but also introduced a host of toxic side effects, including other chronic illnesses, infection and death.  Most Lupies die today from infection due to immunosuppresants than the disease itself.   These drugs are painful, at best.    

When Lupus hit, I found myself thrown suddenly into a GIANT whirlwind of establishing new boundaries, a new way of life, navigating multiple specialists and other doctor appointments, learning how to take 43 pills a day without ending up in the ER, and learning about my disease through a whole lot of trial and error.  Chronic illness is ISOLATING.  These things fly at you ruthlessly as you slowly learn to navigate the cluster that is health insurance and the practice of medicine today while attempting to remain “stress free”, because of course, stress is a huge factor with Lupus disease activity.  

So, it is my plan that this website will become a collection of resources, information, tools and support.  A place that will hopefully make this sort of journey a whole lot easier for the newly diagnosed.  A resource not just for patients, but also for friends and family.  I will concentrate on Lupus at first, but my goal is also to spread the word about an alternative option in mediating the symptoms of Lupus and other chronic illnesses in the Connective Tissue and T-cell based cancer realm.  This is UVA1 Phototherapy and it is very much time the world knew a bit more about this amazing drug-free and totally counter-intuitive but effective natural wavelength of light.  So please, come back and learn more about UVA1 and how it put my formerly non-responsive Lupus into full remission for over a year now, without the toxic drugs, and through the hottest summer on record in Oklahoma…